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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems

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Drawing from thirty-five years of Hirsch's work, across seven poetry collections, The Living Fire moves through themes of identity, childhood, desire, and absence. The poems carry an undercurrent of hope in even the darkest moments. In that light, perhaps, Hirsch's newest poems begin the collection. The newest work is that of tribute and memory; Hirsch addresses lost love, past travels, and aging, applying worldly knowledge and a literary sensibility to these themes. In the short poem "Last Saturday," for instance, a sense of existential foreboding colors a routine event, an exterminator's house call:

Then the doorbell rang suddenly,like an alarm, on Saturday morning....

The sense of interruption which begins the poem instills gravity to the event. The poet's own fears reveal themselves in the second stanza:

but I never expected him to comeso early, without warning

This book review originally appeared in American Poets, fall 2010, issue 39.